Day Five:
It’s hard to believe I’ve been on the road five days already and for the most part, my last real day on Route 66 ends tomorrow but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I had breakfast at the same place I had dinner last night, Earls Family Restaurant which is less than a mile from the El Rancho. Breakfast was good and the weather was beautiful and sunny although it felt as if summer was returning!
Heading out of town, I took the original route for Route 66 through Gallup and happened to pass Gurley Ford – quite a surprise when I saw a dark blue Ford GT sitting on the sidewalk at the front door to the showroom…I stopped for a few pictures and Mr. Gurley walked out…he owns the car personally but occasionally takes kids for rides while his sales people work with the parents…funny that never happened to me when I was a kid!!!
Continuing out of town I pass a large decorated vase and also an old trading post with some interesting murals advertising the business; now out of business…a lot of today was spent passing now silent trading posts and tourist attractions including a trading post tucked inside the protection of a cliff face. The same site had a old fake fort and the the hole in the cliff was used in a Kirk Douglas movie "Ace in the Hole".
I also passed a faux fort called Fort Courage – the purported home of the campy 60’s TV show “F-Troop” as some of the ‘fort’ was used for filming the series…more entertaining, however, were the horses roaming free on the property including several hanging around the gas pumps of the forever-closed gas station!
A major part of the day was spent in the Petrified Forest National Park which includes the southern part of the Painted Desert…my pictures simply can’t do justice to the varying colors of the landscape or the beauty of the crystal structured inside the petrified wood…the drive through the park was great including a stop paying homage to Route 66 complete with an old wreck of a car on concrete blocks…the Route did pass through the park the Painted Desert Inn, now park property, served Route 66 travelers and was at one time a Harvey hotel and was originally built of petrified logs.
Other sites today included the giant jack-rabbit and also
As I left Winslow, the San Francisco Peaks were rising up form the high desert and as I got closer to
Flagstaff is a beautiful town with lots of shops and a rich Route 66 history…dinner tonight was at the Grand Canyon Cafe; a Route 66 staple.
Tomorrow it’s on to Oatman, AZ, hopefully in time to see the wild burrows and then on to Las Vegas for a couple of days before heading back to Tennessee!
Distance covered today was 249 miles; total mileage for the trip so far is 1,888.0
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